Popular Woodworking 2003-06 № 134, страница 53

Skewing the plane body during the cut can help in tricky grain situations.

the mouth, the angle of the iron and the wood, some planes work better on some woods than others. If you can tighten up the throat, try that. Or switch to a different tool with a higher angle or a tighter throat.

• Sharpen the iron. A sharp tool is always less likely to tear out the grain than a slightly dull one. If you are planing a board that refuses to be tamed, try touching up your iron on a sharpening stone and then attacking your problem area immediately.

• Go against the grain. Once in a great while I'll plane a problem board against the grain and it solves all or most of my problems. Wood, as I mentioned before, can be vexing.

• Shellac. Wipe on a spit coat

A little shellac on a problem tearout will stiffen the wood fibers and allow them to be sheared cleanly - sometimes.

of thin shellac to the problem area and let it dry for 10 minutes. Then give the area a try. This tip, which I picked up on the Internet, has worked for me. The shellac stiffens the fibers and allows you to shear them more easily. You only get a couple passes, though, before the shellac is gone.

• Scrape. My last resort is my scraper plane and my card scraper. The scraper plane handles the larger problem areas (half a board). The card scraper is for the small sections that refuse to behave.

Finally, just keep at it. Refuse to give up. Smoothing is one of those skills that seems to develop in fits and starts. Don't be ashamed if you have to resort to sandpaper or power sanding.

Another suggestion I give be

ginners is to begin developing their planing skills by smoothing the interior parts of their casework. If you botch things there, it generally won't show.

Then, when you think you've got that down, I encourage you to plane all the parts of a project and then power sand it with 220-grit paper. This will quickly point out where you planed too little or too much. Depending on how messed up things are you can con

tinue with the sandpaper or go back to the plane.

Just remember: Sometimes a plane is the right tool for the job, and sometimes you need to resort to the random-orbit sander or the scraper. But as you get more experience with a smoother, I think you'll find your power-sanding equipment sitting dormant for longer periods of time.

To tame difficult tearout, I turn to my scraper plane, the Lie-Nielsen #85. This plane and the #80 cabinet scraper are the two easiest types to sharpen and use.

popwood.com

51